by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 6, 2008 | Blog
Practical–this lesson is totally practical!
Mike Cleveland shows that an eating “accident” (outside of our God-given boundaries) happens when a series of mini-events, one upon another, results in the “wreck.” He shares about how his job as an airplane pilot causes him to read and analyze airplane wrecks in the past. His eye is on how to avoid the same pitfalls that resulted in the accidents. This has caused him to see that most airplane wrecks happen following a chain of events.
He asks the participant to then evaluate what are the links in the chain that lead to an eating “wreck” in their life. This is mine:
1. Usually there is an emotional trigger, disappointment, frustration of some kind.
2. Usually I am doing something without a focus–my mind is free to wander. This may be watching a movie with the family, or surfing the internet.
3. I begin to think about the food, what it would taste like, how good it will be, that “I deserve it,” and entertain thoughts of justifying why this wouldn’t really be outside of my boundaries.
4. Hardening of my heart to God by resisting thoughts of him.
5. Getting up and going into the kitchen.
6. Eating it.
Mr. Cleveland’s suggestion is that at any point in this chain, we can break the link…and this will derail the head-on collision with sinful eating.
For instance, in my own example, here are some ideas about how I could change things up:
1. When the emotional trigger hits, I can truth journal. This is something taught in Barb Raveling’s Freedom From Emotional Eating workbook. I have blogged about this process previously. Basically, truth journaling includes writing about how I feel about what is going on, what I want to do about it and then prayerfully evaluating what I have written and what of my thoughts are lies and which are truths…then writing out a corresponding truth for each lie to combat the lie and refuse to be duped by it.
2. There are a few ways of changing this one…If I am doing something mindless, I can be prayerful as I sit down to do it. Surely, a movie with my family isn’t something I need to *stop* doing necessarily, but I can do it *differently*–prayerfully aware of my vulnerability and seeking God with a humble heart!
I realized when I looked over a week’s worth of reports to my accountability partner that my violation of my 0 to 5 eating boundary was happening consistently while watching a movie with my family. While not watching movies could be one way of handling it, I don’t prefer to do that as time with my family is important to me. We do incorporate other things to do together into our lives and that is one way of handling this.
Another way of handling this is a recommitment to the boundary of not eating when the screen is on. If I eat, it must be at the table with nothing else happening (one of the keys to conscious eating from the Thin Within book). It isn’t likely that I will announce to the family “Turn off the show for 5 minutes while I eat” unless I am at a 0! đ
3. If I find myself beginning to think about food I want and other thoughts that are heading toward a “crash,” I will take what little strength I have and breathe a prayer, “Lord, change my want to!” I can also choose to take captive my thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. Applying what yesterday’s lesson was about, I can choose to take my focus OFF of the food and OFF of indulging my flesh, and put it ON Christ and HIS sacrifice…all HE has done for me to free me from the hold of sin. Of all of these ideas, this one is, perhaps, the toughest, so it is best if I can stop the chain before it gets to this third link.
4. If I can sense that I am hardening my heart to God by resisting thoughts of him, it is time to get on my knees! This is that tough moment…where my choice makes or breaks me. This little moment is where indiscretion or a godly choice are made. Last night, I felt it so clearly. It really was a single solitary moment when I chose to say NO to the temptation…and YES to God. Once the choice was made relief came! I was free from the hold of food (in that moment). My choice *softened* my heart further to the Lord instead of *hardened* my heart further. This is one reason why I believe so strongly that it isn’t about the food. It is about what happens in my heart at the moment I choose to eat or not. I am callusing my heart further to the tender voice of the Spirit OR I am tendering my heart to Him.
5. Going into the kitchen to get the food won’t be as rewarding or as easy to do if I don’t have my kitchen filled with foods that I find hard to resist…I have had to stop having ready-made chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge, for instance. That is something I have an impossible time resisting (for now). Also, I can have an open bible on the counter…a reminder that God invites me to feast on Him instead of on food that I don’t need and that won’t fill the emptiness in my heart.
6. If I have gotten all the way to the point of eating it, I can still stop the wreck! Mid-bite, I can get up and throw it out! I have done this before…not often, I will admit. If I have allowed the chain of events to get this far, it is TOUGH for me to have the willingness to stop mid-sin. đ
I know that praying about all of this at other times of the day when I am not in the middle of it helps empower me when the temptation does come along. Praying that God will change my want to, or like David prayed in Psalm 51 that God would grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
I do believe this…that 2 Chronicles 16:9 says that the eyes of the Lord look throughout the earth for those whose hearts are fully committed to him. Even in the moment, if I call out, “Lord! I want YOUR will!,” if I am “fully committed” in THIS moment, then this same verse says that he will see my heart and he will strengthen me in this moment. THIS MOMENT MATTERS. I don’t want to minimize the moment. Our enemy loves it when we diminish the value of a moment.
So those are my “links” in my chain leading to an eating “wreck.” And the subsequent plan for breaking the chain at any point in time.
How about you? What series of mini-events might lead you to an eating wreck? What can you do to break the chain at any point in the series?
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 18, 2008 | Blog
I plan on returning to summaries of The Lord’s Table soon, but today, I could tell I needed to deal with some things. I turned to “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” by Barb Raveling, instead of working on The Lord’s Table.
Yes…this is what I needed. What I need. Present tense.
Yesterday, I struggled a lot with urges to eat and to revert back to drinking soda. I didn’t give in to the soda drinking. (I will write about this another time, as I think diet soda has been a huge stronghold in my past…one I never totally resolved to give up, but have now…hopefully, permanently.)
I was amazed at how drawn to food and soda I felt all day.
My accountability partner asked the right questions of me and prompted me to allow God to help me work through this. My tendency was to just “blow it off” as “Ok, so I am feeling emotional.” But to be honest with you, calling it emotional eating without DEALING with it, isn’t even as good as throwing a band-aid on it. It is like seeing a wound and saying “Yup, it is bleeding” and leaving it at that.
In Barb Raveling’s workbook, “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” the reader is urged to go beyond recognizing there are emotional triggers, to actually doing something about it…to speaking TRUTH into the situation. This is done through “truth journaling.” This is a remarkably simple thing to do, I found, yet profound.
The enemy seeks to take us captive by messing with our heads…the old “You deserve to eat this…” or “You will feel better if you have that…” thing.
Truth journaling happens in a couple of ways. One is to call a lie a lie regarding this notion that food will make me feel better when I am emotional. It doesn’t. Not only does it NOT make me feel better five minutes from now (after I have inhaled it), but it makes things worse. I still have to deal with the emotions, but it is then compounded by the guilt and frustration with myself for trying to numb it with food. Truth journaling exposes this. And it does so very specifically…not generally, as I have just done in my explanation.
For instance, if I am tempted to eat a chocolate muffin when I am not hungry and it is because I just survived my son driving us through the canyon together (he just got his permit), I write down how I am feeling, “I want a chocolate muffin right now. I am not hungry. I want it because it will make me feel better. I deserve it for enduring the stressful drive through the canyon.” I then go back and number the thoughts: 1. I want a muffin. 2. I am not hungry. 3. I think the muffin will make me feel better. 4. I deserve the muffin.
Then, for each, I label if it is a truth or lie and what the corresponding truth is for that lie:
1. True. I want the muffin. 2. True. I am not hungry. 3. LIE. The muffin will NOT make me feel better and will, in fact, make me feel worse because of how I feel when I violate my boundaries of eating only when hungry. 4. LIE. I don’t “deserve” the muffin. The muffin isn’t a “reward.” Knowing that I have hung in there doing what God has called me to is a very great reward and I will praise God for my safety and delight in his joy over us!
Another approach is to deal with the emotions…this goes to the heart of it. I spent some time this morning doing this very thing and I feel better equipped to handle the day.
I am emotional with good reason. 1.) My son is driving now and living where we do, the roads are windy, narrow and everyone on the roads is insane. đ 2.) My horse, Breezy, gets seen tomorrow by a specialist for what may be cancer in his eye. 3.) My schedule is so jammed full of things this week that I am overwhelmed. 4.) I have a website I am developing that has taken on a life of its own for a client who I have worked out a “trade” with and now I just want it done.
I have a strong emotional response to each of these things. This morning, as I truth journalled about some of them (and I will go back and do the others), I was able to invite God to expose the lies that are at the heart of some of my emotions about them. Certainly, while worry about Breezy is understandable, it won’t help matters. In fact, Breezy senses my anxiety and it adds to his own, making it more difficult for the vet to treat him. I have anxiety about the money this will cost and, again, worry won’t help this. It is what it is.
See how this works? As I allow God to speak truth into these situations, I am better equipped to pray through them and not to yearn for food which doesn’t help matters anyhow. God is my healer and my helper. He knows all things. He knows right now about Breezy’s eye and what is causing it.
This seems so simple right now as I share it. I almost want to delete this post because I assume people might say “Duh!” But it really IS profound.
The trick is, in the moment when I feel tempted to eat or to guzzle a diet cherry pepsi, I must be willing to stop and evaluate what is TRUTH in the situation? It isn’t likely that drinking or eating something will EVER be the TRUTHful answer to what is going on.
How about you? Can you take stock and see what the truth is about why you are drawn to food? Or, at the very least, evaluate whether having this candybar or that second helping of enchiladas will *really* make you feel better, happier, whatever an hour from now? đ
I want to live out my freedom. As Beth Moore said last week, we can’t have our milestones until we can take captive the moment. I see Barb Raveling’s truth journaling idea as being an invaluable way of capturing the moment for the Lord and allowing my mind to be renewed with his truth…
I hope you do, too! đ
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 1, 2008 | Blog
How interesting. I looked at my entry from last year at this time. You will find it here.
It has begunâŠHOLIDAY FRENZY! đ
Even early in October, Samâs Club was hauling out Christmas decorations and wrappings, suggested packaged items for gift giving. OH MY! It is that time of year again!
This time of year can be wonderful and horrible! I am just sure that God didnât create snack size Milky Way bar morsels in the âFamily Packâ size to TORMENT ME! How about you? How did you fare through this past week with candy abounding?
And this is only the beginning! The HOLY days are upon us! I hope I can remember they are HOLY daysâŠand not justifications for me to indulge my flesh!
I have to laugh. This year, I did NOT buy one single solitary bag of candy. HUGE VICTORY! I didnât even think about it! This is proof that God has been at work because left to my own devices I would do what I have done almost every other year!!!!
For instance, two years ago, I justified having a few bags of candy in the house because âWhat if there was a trick or treater at the door and I had no candy?â Never mind that we had gone the entire previous 4 years without a SINGLE knock on the door! I simply had to have the candy âfor the trick or treaters.â HA!
I shared this with my accountability partnerâŠ.that two years ago I kept dipping into itâŠquoting myself truisms about being free in Christ and so onâŠthe fact is, all things are permissible, YES, but not all things are beneficial! How many 0 to 5 meals could I REALLY justify with âFriendly Sizeâ Butter fingers as the main course? đ
When I realized that I could not stare down the candy and come out the winner, I made a beeline for the toiletâŠto throw it away! It didnât even occur to me that it might clog things up! I just knew that if I put it in the trash at home, I would, at some point, if my past record is any indicator, plunge headlong into the garbage can to retrieve it at some pointâŠand eat it anyhow! Have you ever done that? So have IâŠmany times. What is so awful is that then the family thinks how noble and good I am for throwing it awayâŠthey never saw me retrieve it from the trash! I would sneak it into the bathroom and eat it there!!!! So two years ago, I had to had to had to throw it down the toilet! VICTORY!
Last year, I was tempted to buy it, but said no to the flesh. YAY! WE DO NOT GET ANY TRICK OR TREATERS! đ
And it is with humility that I say that this year, I didnât even think of Halloween candy until my accountability partner and I were talking about it in email. God has done a HUGE work in me! To take me from what I was to what he is doing in me now! THANK YOU, Lord!
It is interesting to note other contrasts between last years post on October 31st and this year. The horse I was worrying about then and whether or not I should have him put down…well, this is us two days ago:
He is in training at my trainer’s place. He has been doing so well! Yes, winters are hard…and this one may be no exception, but this year, I have inquired about the two of us getting involved and volunteering with some therapeutic riding organizations. I can’t wait to see what happens! We have gotten some favorable responses so far. If we can do that all winter long, keeping him a bit active, maybe he won’t be so miserable and arthritic.
Last year in the post, I lamented about Daniel being such a liar and how worried I was about his future. Daniel has been transformed! He is confesssing sin, praying incredibly authentic prayers, reading the word, asking forgiveness of those he has wronged…even admitting when he hasn’t been truthful (and typically these are so mild that it is astonishing given how calloused his heart used to be!). God has been doing some AMAZING works in my life over the past year.
I PRAISE YOU, LORD!
by Heidi Bylsma | Jun 2, 2008 | Uncategorized
I am going to date myself. Do you remember the song from the 70s, sung by Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly?â
Have you ever felt like someone has been reading your journals and is talking to YOU or, worse — others— about what is there? Or that someone knows even the unspoken, unwrittenâŠmaybe unspeakable things in your heartâŠis bringing them to the surfaceâŠexposing you?
That is how I felt last weekend when I spent some time watching video Session Two of Stepping Up by Beth Moore.
Beth was in my home via my laptop and Windows Media Center. The morning was quiet â sunlight flooding my bedroom through the tree-framed, glass door. My golden retriever (psycho) dog was earnestly standing guard to prevent the reflections and shadows from causing any harm. All normal things, on normal mornings…
As Beth drew me in to the video session focusing on the Feast of Unleavened Bread and its applicability to my life, rather than Don McLean (who “Killing Me Softly” was written about), it was the Lord who was “strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with His song…”
“Hidden Hypocrisy…”
How did she know? How did Beth know that, like the symbolic gesture of holding back a little bit of âdough from a former baking,â I, too, had been holding something back, not ridding myself of ALL the yeast in my life. Like the fermented dough âhiddenâ in the flour, this tiny little bit seemed so harmlessâŠbut it had been working its way through everything, affecting all of itâŠ
From the human, worldly perspective, from all outward appearances, I, Heidi Bylsma, have been a “Thin Within Success Story.” (Can you hear the tooting of the proverbial horns!?) In fact, my “success” has been proclaimed from the rooftops — literally, even in a national magazine. With more on tap this summer…
Mud on my face!
FIRST magazine ran a feature last December.
To add to my chagrin (the timing is oh-so-interesting), the July/August issue of Health magazine will include an article on âMindful Eating,â including possibly a paragraph about my testimony with Thin Within. Quick and Simple’s August issue may have a feature on yours truly…(unless the Lord says otherwise, and He may…) Announcing yet again, “Here I am world!” “Look at me!” “God has done a new thing in me!” (More tooting of those horns…the head getting ever larger…)
Yet here I sit as I type this entry, wearing my âskinny jeans,” wondering if these well-worn, well-used, Levi 550s have *shrunk* some more (hmmm….no, I don’t imagine so after being washed at least 100 times!). Yes, they feel uncomfortably snug around the waist. :-/ But worse, there is a knowing that:
I am not as I claim.
Hidden Hypocrisy….
When did I let it become all about the outsideâeven while claiming it was about so much more? When did it stop being about GOD and being about ME?
I was challenged in my Beth Moore Stepping Up lesson yesterday, too. Have I begun to trust more in Godâs blessings than in God himself?
Exposed again.
The “package” may look so different than it did in 2006, but the lusts are still there! (Or are there — again!) I may not indulge them as often as I used to, but in so many ways the âinner meâ feels like it is still in need of being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I guess it does. *I* do.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me…
The out-of-the-blue realization that I am blatantly something other than what I intentionally lead people to believe followed an email exchange with a dear friend…where I claimed (again) to live with integrity. I alleged that I would never do something hidden. I claimed to be authentic, genuine, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. “And durn proud of it, too…” (Toot toot toot…)
Hidden Hypocrisy…
If these things are true, then why, when Beth began to speak about âhidden hypocrisy,â did I feel so exposed? Why did I want to hide? (HmmâŠa pattern emerges.)
Would I really want anyone who reads this blog, or my church friends, or my family to know me? What I am thinking? What I am…eating? Would I want any of those who âadmireâ me, “respect” me, who feel I am an âinspiration,â to see that the scale has nudged up in recent weeks? To know about the vacancy of my prayer life?
Hidden Hypocrisy…
And what is with ME ME ME making a You Tube video talking about the three phases of Thin Within and speaking about âdiscernmentâ and “mastery” — phase 2 and phase 3 — when I live SOLIDLY in phase 1…not just some of the time, but most of the time…without any desire to even let God change me? “God will remake your tastebuds!” Well, good grief. I sure can preach it, but there it is again…faith is seen in what I DO and what I DO says I do NOT believe what I said!
Hidden Hypocrisy…
I *have* experienced phase 2 and a bit of 3 before…and yes, I spend *some* time there now, but so often it is still my taste buds that determine what I will eat. How can I dare to speak about not being stuck? How can I encourage others when I am such a hypocrite? :-/
In fact, when it comes to my eating and drinking, I have SHUT off Godâs voice of late. After a year and a half of eating âthis way,â I know I can have thus and so for breakfast, this and that for lunch, and about this much of this-other-stuff for other eating occasions throughout the day, thank you very much, and still âhoverâ around the same weight. I have created the âHeidi Diet!â There is NO walking with the Spirit. There is NO praying. There is NO discernment. What there IS is a tuning OUT of God! What is UP with that? :-/ Pride, pride, and more pride.
I confess these things here, now, loudly. Frankly, I don’t want to put this blog entry out there…because with the coming of this realization, an old, but familiar companion has returned as wellâŠshame. I remember well that shame breeds more shameful behavior if left unchecked. Like the blackberry brambles in my backyard, I must wage an all out assault against shame and not allow even a fragment of it to remain.
Knowing that, I reject the old way of secrecy and wallowing in shame. (Proof that God is doing a new thing! Praise YOU LORD!)
I know that shame is evidence of the enemy prowling. Like footprints on a dusty floorâŠfootprints on the unkempt floor of my life, footprints of the enemy who is sneaking around accusing, scheming a way to devour me. I refuse to let him make any mark on my life. That is why this confession is public. I believe that in order to BE RID of this yeast, this old, fermented dough, I must choose to allow the exposing to be public, too, just as all my other claims have been public. I wish FIRST would splash this across their double page insert…:-(
Well…er…maybe not.
God, in his tenderness, chose to expose the truth in my life quietly. He is gentle that way (well, often times). He has, however, called to me to step into the light with it. He covers me — saturates me — with grace. He wraps me in a blanket. He redeems all the years the locusts have eaten. NOTHING is so great, so horrible as to stand between me and the love of God.
In fact, Psalm 3: 3,4 says:
But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.
To the LORD I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill.
Selah
Yes, Lord. You are my shield. You bestow glory. You do not cast shame on me. You lift my head, instead. I cry to you. I thank you that You answer, Lord. I choose to â*selah,â Lord. Amen.
* Selah means pause, rest, or think about it.
** I want my dear blog reading friends to know that the above has been in process since Saturday. I have placed it here, but even so, it is an “observation.” The “correction” has begun as well. I now have a daily accountability partner. This is vital for me at this time. I celebrate that the Lord continues to do a NEW new thing! đ
